Help Thread

VGFL Commissioner

Welcome to the help section. I hope we use this as a community to share tips and tricks to improve each others games. American Football is a complex sport and hopefully we can bring people up to speed to improve the standard of the league as a whole and lessen the skill gaps that exist.​

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The focus will be on what works in real life and why. This can easily be translated to Madden but we have to remember that Madden is a computer game and has flawed AI. This can impact the effectiveness of some of these tips.

Please feel free to post your own advice and I will add them to the relevant sections. These include:​

VGFL Commissioner

Training is a complex system in Madden 19. Several new factors have changed this year, which affects your ability to maximise XP earnings for your players. Each of these factors acts in varying ways to do so and I will explain each below.

XP sliders will obviously affect all Training XP, but after this, the XP that a player gains is split into three different areas:

The following sections define each of these areas in order of influence.

1. XP Sliders

Sliders are king. They affect the Drill XP awarded, Bonus XP awarded and Focus Training. The slider values are effectively the % of all of these awards that a player at that position is granted. For example, a slider set to 50 will grant 50% of the XP awarded at default, while a slider set to 168 will grant 168% of the default.

All the examples below use the default slider setting of 100%.

2. Training Type

The most obvious one is the training drill itself. Different drills on offense and defense target different position groups. Groups not targeted in that training drill will receive no XP for the drill.

Tip: Manually choose your weekly training drills so that you target position groups where you have lots of young players.

3. Basic XP – Depth Chart Position (Training Reps)

The Basic XP a player will earn is based on their Depth Chart position. All other multipliers affected by Training Medal, Dev trait and Scheme Fit and Coach Traitsare based off of this. This varies by position – as you’ll see below – but most positions award a full complement of training XP to the top two players at that position. Players below that are on a sliding scale of how much they get.

The exception to this is the WRs, who have an extra “ranking” above the basic XP award that starters at every other position get. The tables below show the basic XP award by position and depth chart rank (N.B. these are the baseline values that get modified based on training medal and Dev trait, as noted below, and are assuming all XP sliders are set at 100).

Despite previous reports that Madden auto-ranks them based on OVR, my testing shows that if you put your starter at the 3rdspot that is his depth chart position for training even if he is the highest OVR.

**NEW**

The Basic XP also seems to have changed from release. I cannot see any information about this in any patch notes. Franchises started now earn 67% more XP than at release.​

Offense

The abnormal positions here are WR (where there are the boosted XP awards for the two starting wideouts and slot receiver), and Offensive Line, where there is a smaller drop-off from the starter/primary backup down to the 3rd string and bench/practice squad guys. It bottoms out at the second tier.

Defense and Special Teams

All defensive and special teams players follow the standard pattern.

Tips: Before each training session adjust your depth chart. Think of it like giving the younger players more training reps than your veterans. In real life, top players get days off from training whilst the youngsters never do. You want ALL of your young players, especially ones with a Dev trait to be listed in the top two positions of a position on your depth chart, even if it is not their listed position.

After training change it back to how you want it for your game.

4. Training Medal

For each training drill, you are awarded different medals depending on how well you complete the drill (and you can then sim that drill in the future and be awarded that medal).

Bronze/No Medal: Basic XP awarded.

Silver Medal: 200% of the Basic XP awarded.

Gold Medal: 300% of the the Basic XP award.

Tip: I should think this is obvious, but you should get Gold in whatever training drill it is you select. The hardest ones are 3 on 3 and Trick Plays, in my experience. Fortunately, there are easier alternatives that target the same position groups.

The table below shows the Basic XP gained for a drill based on the medal earned

5. Player Development Trait

Dev traits are incredibly important in Madden 19, as EA have tweaked the system to remove Slow Development, add Star back in and increased the number of players with Quick Dev. Normal does not equal Slow this year. It is a whole new system. It’s very, very hard to get a Normal Dev guy up to elite OVR levels nowadays, at least in a league with sensible sim rules and XP sliders. A large part of this is how Dev traits affect weekly training XP:

Normal Dev: No addition to Basic XP (x1 Multiplier).

Quick Dev: 120% of the Basic XP will be added (x2.2 Multiplier).

Star Dev: 300% of the Basic XP will be added (x4 Multiplier).

Superstar Dev: 500% of the Basic XP will be added (x6 Multiplier).

Tip:The difference between Superstar Dev and Normal Dev is immense. You should be targeting your weekly training drills at young players with good dev traits over all other factors.

The table below shows the XP that will be added for each Dev trait to form Drill XP

6. Coach Scheme – (Bonus XP Part A)

The coaches scheme will affect training. This is represented by the purple puzzle piece that sits on a players profile. If a player has this then they will receive an additional 250% of their Basic XP from training. It is affected by medal but not affected by Dev Trait.

The example below shows the additional XP gained based for a scheme fit player on Bronze training on default sliders.

7. Coach Traits – (Bonus XP Part B)

You can spend coach XP on progression boosts that award some additional XP to players for the training drills, as well as boosting weekly goal XP awards, and slightly reducing the cost of upgrading attributes. Coach progression packages are massively important, and you need to be a bit strategic about which ones you buy as some of them are very expensive and require that you save up for the best part of a season to purchase them.

The coach boosts are a bit of a topic in their own right, in that they are affected by the training medal (i.e. 2x basic for silver, 3x basic for gold) and by XP sliders. For the values below, I have assumed bronze training medal and all XP sliders set at 100. The values given by the coach boosts are aligned to how much basic weekly XP a player gets based on his position and depth chart rank. If a coach has a trait for that position group then they give an additional 60% of basic XP. They are not affected by Dev Trait

The example below shows the additional XP gained on Bronze training oand default sliders for a position group that the coach has a training package for.

Tips: Purchase coaching packages strategically, targeting positions where you have lots of young talent you need to progress. Once you’ve got enough packages to mean you can train two offensive and two defensive position groups all season and get the applicable XP boosts, don’t be afraid to stockpile your coach XP until after the draft so you can spend it on the most relevant positions for the upcoming season based on your haul of rookies.

8. Focus Training

In addition to the drill-based XP, you can choose three players to give extra focus training to in order to further boost their XP. The XP awarded for focus training is based – again – on Dev traits:

Normal Dev:Basic focus training XP (50 XP)

Quick Dev:200% of the basic focus training XP (100 XP)

Star Dev:400% of the basic focus training XP (200 XP)

Superstar Dev:600% of the basic focus training XP (300 XP)

Tip: You absolutely must focus train your young guys with high Dev and avoid Normal players where possible.

Factors that DO NOT affect how much weekly XP is awarded

There are some misconceptions about other things that might affect how much weekly XP a player gets from training, but if they are not in the list above, they are not relevant. Some of the more common ones are below:

Age
Your player’s age has no bearing on how much training XP they get. You can be 20, you can 42, you’re getting the same amount (provided your basic award, coach boost, dev trait, focus training slider and training medal are identical). Age only affects the cost of upgrading attributes, regression, and how much milestone, weekly and season XP is awarded.

Overall Rating
Again, this has no bearing on weekly XP. You can be a 40 OVR player, you can be a 99 OVR player, you’re getting the same weekly XP as long as all the other factors outlined above are the same.

The Weekly Training XP Formula

Ok, so let’s throw all of this stuff in a bucket and deconstruct the formula Madden uses to determine how much weekly XP a player gets in training:

Here’s an example for a starting Pass Protecting Left Tackle with Star Dev, doing a Hat Count drill at Gold, being focus trained, and working under a coach with the O line boost package and Vertical Power Run scheme fit, in a league where the OT XP slider is set to 90 in a recently created Franchise:

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